He archery He came into her life by chance, but she fell in love with him from the first moment. The atmosphere of the competition and the medals that he won prematurely gave him the motivation to continue growing in that sport. A few years later, she had become an eight-time Spanish champion. Eight, in fact, although the latter arrived later, after entering the National Police and making a name for herself as the first Spaniard to receive the highest decoration from the United States Secret Service. “Archery is a part of me. It gives me emotional stability,” says Beatriz Gómez Hermosilla, chief inspector of the Central Cybercrime Unit of the National Police and archery athlete, in an interview with Infobae.
Beatriz started archery by chance. She lived near the Guadalajara training center and one day, while walking, she saw people with a bow and they invited her to participate. “They left me a bow and arrow and I saw that it was quite a motivating thing.” He was only 14 years old then. Shortly after, he began to participate in regional championships, where he usually returned with a medal. “At that time there were not too many women in Castilla-La Mancha who did archery. It’s not that I’m saying that it was very easy to get a medal, but it wasn’t as complicated as it may be today, when participation has increased a lot.”
Seeing that he was not bad at it and that he was winning championships, he became encouraged. “I had never won anything at a sporting level in other activities that I had tried. Get motivated“At the age of 15 she participated in the Spanish Children’s Championship, where she placed second. The following year she went to the Absoluto de Sala, where she won the gold medal. It was that medal that opened the doors of the Madrid High Performance Center. “It was a sporting and professional opportunity,” he says.
She recognizes that it was a hard change because she, who is an only child, was not used to sharing a room, bathroom, or time with anyone other than the normal time of going to school or institute. “It was a little difficult for me, because suddenly I found myself in a place where everything was sharing and with a strict regime.” of schedules and departures. But I adapted quickly. There I also found my comfort zone and learned to be more structured.” At the CAR in Madrid she also had the opportunity to learn everything about archery: position, technique and the psychological aspects that this sport requires.
Everything learned in training was soon evident in competitions. Seven times he managed to proclaim himself champion of Spain (the eighth was this 2025). “There was a time when I went to the championships thinking that my goal was to win a medal and if I left without getting on a podium, it was almost like a failure because I felt very technically prepared to be able to get on the podium. If I didn’t achieve that at least, it seemed like I wasn’t up to par with everything I was training and everything I was dedicating to archery,” he recalls. A mentality that defines as “toxic” and of which he is aware now, from a temporal distance.
In a competition, as she details, there are many factors that can come into play, from luck and stress to the simple fact of having a good or bad day… Added to this is the mental factor, a part that she trained at Blume. “It is one of the most important parts. I went every week with a sports psychologist and it helped me control situations that can arise in a competition, like suddenly you break down or negative thoughts appear or you don’t know how to manage your nerves.”
Being at the CAR in Madrid allowed the national coach, who was part of the Federation’s staff, to see Beatriz up close. She, as part of her training and routine, participated in different qualifying championships. Some tournaments where the rivalry stayed at home, since their opponents were their own training partners. He managed to get into the national team, but they failed to qualify for the London Olympics. They stayed right at the doors: eight teams entered and they were the ninth. “It was very bad luck, but you can’t go down either. We had to move forward.”
Beatriz’s life continued, but in a different direction. The idea of competing gained weight for her, and she could no longer consider another Olympic cycle at the same level, although she does not rule out that at some point she will go in search of the Games. The National Police He had always liked it, but he considers that it is a vocation that he had a little hidden, since he had not finished realizing that he truly wanted to do that in his life. At the age of 21, he began to come into contact with police officers and no longer had any doubts. “It is one of the best decisions I have made in my life, because I feel a full vocation for the police”, he states.
Once again, chance was the culprit that landed on the cybercrime area. “I have always liked everything related to technology, but I had it as a hobby. I knew that within the Police I wanted to investigate.” In 2017, she was assigned to Torrejón de Ardoz and the head of the police station gave her the choice between being in citizen security or taking the technological crimes group. “I told him ‘well, technological crimes’. I got into the world and I’m still there.” She stayed there for two years, before making the jump to the General Commissariat of the Judicial Police, to the Central Cybercrime Unit. “I had already worked with the headquarters in an operation, they liked how I worked and the mentality I had and they said ‘this woman has to come here.’ And I’ve been there for almost seven years.”
She entered the force as an inspector and as soon as she had the opportunity and was allowed, she began preparing for her promotion to chief inspector. Now she is one of the youngest in Spain with that position. “In everything I do, I am too perfectionist, ambitious and I want to reach the top. Archery is not worth it to me if I am not going to compete later and I think I want to win, and then maybe I don’t win, but I am thinking about it. The same thing happens with the Police. I don’t start investigating something if I don’t know what it is. I will stop the criminals and that, at least, by all means, I am going to try to get them into prison.”
His work did not go unnoticed at the national level, but neither did it go unnoticed outside of Spanish borders. “We carried out one of the largest operations, if not the largest, that have been carried out in Spain to combat card fraud,” he acknowledges. The case investigated a criminal organization that was dedicated to defrauding American banking entities. A fraud that exceeded 20 million euros. It was that operation that led to US Secret Service to award Beatriz its most prestigious decoration in 2021. A distinction that until that moment no Spaniard had received. “It was a real pride“I didn’t expect an external organization to recognize my work as a researcher here in Spain,” she says.
And in 2025 he decided to return to his other great passion: archery. He did it with a new category that he had not tried until then, which is called field modality, which instead of being done in a shooting range, it is in a forest. “It’s very complicated“, she acknowledges. She had not shot for seven years and saw this new category as an opportunity to reengage and have fun. “I didn’t want something that implied the seriousness of a Spanish Championship, where you are already risking things.”
He liked the experience from the first moment to the point of participating in two grand prizes and taking the silver medal. Then came the Spanish Championship, where he managed to win gold. Beatriz says she never wanted to give up archery. However, the volume of work and family life did not allow him to maintain the necessary pace of training and competitions. He does not rule out the Los Angeles Olympic Games, although he maintains “realism put on the table”.
Her life now revolves between her job as chief inspector of the Cybercrime Unit and archery. Two worlds that he makes compatible as best he can, “looking for gaps everywhere.” His schedule is now even tighter, as he is doing his PhD. It is in that busy life where archery brings order. “It gives me emotional stability”, he says and adds: “It is part of my life. It’s another part of me, and without it I would feel incomplete. It gives me values that I see that I need to continue reinforcing.”
